Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Doxxing, assault, death threats: the new dangers facing US journalists covering extremism
From The GuardianThu 14 Jun 2018 15.41 BST
...
Recently, a significant part of the HuffPost newsroom had their private details released by far-right trolls.This came in the wake of a story by the HuffPost beat reporter Luke O’Brien about a hyperactive Twitter account, @AmyMek, which offers its 231,000 followers a steady diet of anti-Islamic invective and conspiracy theories. The piece says that @AmyMek had been retweeted and promoted by a range of rightwing luminaries, including Trump.
O’Brien’s story detailed @AmyMek’s promotion of Islamophobic memes and conspiracy theories. It also exposed the identity of the person behind the account, Amy Mekelburg. In seeking to confirm his story, O’Brien contacted the WWE, the then employer of Mekelburg’s husband, Salvatore Siino. WWE fired Siino before O’Brien’s story was published.
Before O’Brien’s story dropped, Mekelburg asked followers to contact HuffPost, which she accused of “viciously harassing” her and “endangering me and my family”. The first tweet in her thread pre-empting the HuffPost story was retweeted 16,000 times.
Various rightwingers online felt that O’Brien had “doxxed” Mekelburg by revealing her as @amymek’s author. What followed was a concerted harassment campaign against O’Brien and his colleagues, where he and other journalists were actually doxxed, with their addresses and phone numbers published for the use of far-right trolls.
O’Brien’s and others’ details were disseminated on 4chan, Twitter and a neo-Nazi podcast. HuffPost journalists received threats, including death threats, on social media. O’Brien’s Twitter account was itself reported for abusive behavior, and he was briefly suspended.
Some tweets were explicit – one of hundreds sent to O’Brien read: “You take my job, I’ll take your life.” Other users tweeted marginally more oblique messages, like images of the Islamic State’s execution of US journalist James Foley.
Several HuffPo reporters also got threats over the phone. A voice message instructed a reporter to “kill yourself” before the callers could find them. Another threatened to send people to a reporter’s house so they could be “gang raped or gang murdered”.
....
Recently, a significant part of the HuffPost newsroom had their private details released by far-right trolls.This came in the wake of a story by the HuffPost beat reporter Luke O’Brien about a hyperactive Twitter account, @AmyMek, which offers its 231,000 followers a steady diet of anti-Islamic invective and conspiracy theories. The piece says that @AmyMek had been retweeted and promoted by a range of rightwing luminaries, including Trump.
O’Brien’s story detailed @AmyMek’s promotion of Islamophobic memes and conspiracy theories. It also exposed the identity of the person behind the account, Amy Mekelburg. In seeking to confirm his story, O’Brien contacted the WWE, the then employer of Mekelburg’s husband, Salvatore Siino. WWE fired Siino before O’Brien’s story was published.
Before O’Brien’s story dropped, Mekelburg asked followers to contact HuffPost, which she accused of “viciously harassing” her and “endangering me and my family”. The first tweet in her thread pre-empting the HuffPost story was retweeted 16,000 times.
Various rightwingers online felt that O’Brien had “doxxed” Mekelburg by revealing her as @amymek’s author. What followed was a concerted harassment campaign against O’Brien and his colleagues, where he and other journalists were actually doxxed, with their addresses and phone numbers published for the use of far-right trolls.
O’Brien’s and others’ details were disseminated on 4chan, Twitter and a neo-Nazi podcast. HuffPost journalists received threats, including death threats, on social media. O’Brien’s Twitter account was itself reported for abusive behavior, and he was briefly suspended.
Some tweets were explicit – one of hundreds sent to O’Brien read: “You take my job, I’ll take your life.” Other users tweeted marginally more oblique messages, like images of the Islamic State’s execution of US journalist James Foley.
Several HuffPo reporters also got threats over the phone. A voice message instructed a reporter to “kill yourself” before the callers could find them. Another threatened to send people to a reporter’s house so they could be “gang raped or gang murdered”.
....
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/14/doxxing-assault-death-threats-the-new-dangers-facing-us-journalists-covering-extremism
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
